The Four Tophers of Bennett Halverson
by thelasteddis
Summary: At least they're together this way. More or less. Topher/Bennett AU. Because Topher/crazy!Bennett angst is underappreciated.
1. Four Tophers

**Author's Notes: I could write tomes of reasons I wish Dollhouse had not been canceled, but right near the top is the epic romance between Topher and Bennett. Had the show continued, I think they could have developed a foe-yay relationship of epic proportions. So welcome to my AU. Here, the L.A. dollhouse split off from Rossum and began a rather corporate-espionage-laden war against it, separating our geeky Romeo and Juliet from one another. But our R&J are each more than a little twisted, especially Bennett, so they're hardly going to let a conflict of interest get in the way of their being together. In one way or another.**

Bennett has four Tophers.

The first is, necessarily, a little boring. Hermes only recognizes Bennett as the woman who makes people different. He smiles shyly at her when he tells her that he is ready for his treatment, but otherwise walks right by her.

That doesn't mean he doesn't look like her Topher, though, all floppy gold hair and puppy eyes, so perhaps she shouldn't be surprised every time she finds herself unlocking his pod so that she can watch him sleep.

The second is her assistant. She had loved working with him, for those few hours before he realized she wanted to kill Echo. Now she could do so again, without a single memory of the treacherous doll (or even the dollhouse she came from) to get in the way of brainstorming and inventing. And if he was so overwhelmed by their combined genius afterwards that she had to suggest, every time, that he sit down in the nearest chair to think it over, she could live with that.

The third isn't actually Topher. He called himself that for a few months in middle school, but went back to Chris in honor of a science fiction author whose books he can't quite recall anymore. He's working his way through another grad school, now, because he's awfully smart but he knows this next doctorate could get him a position at the super-secret facility where his girlfriend works. Even he doesn't know what she does. He's pretty sure it's illegal, though, and has mentally prepared himself to resist torture in his refusal to give up her location when the Empire comes after her.

(She worked for weeks on Chris' backstory, because he needed to get Harding's approval as being no danger to Rossum if she was to take him outside of the facility; but of course, he wouldn't be, because that's just how he was wired.)

The fourth she keeps in a wrapped box under her bed, with a tag that reads "To Bennett, Princess of the Galaxy" because once she had had Chris give it to her as a birthday present (he was so proud of his handmade Minecraft mod) and giggled over the symbolic implications for days. Every night she checks that it's still there, and whispers good night.

She keeps it there until she can't possibly stand it any more, and when that day comes she sneaks it into the D.C. dollhouse at one in the morning and loads it into the imprint machine. She unlocks Hermes' pod, but this time she reaches in and shakes him awake, gently.

Hermes wakes slowly, his neural systems unused to rising before his pod is scheduled to open. His blond eyebrows lower a little in consternation. "Hello."

"Hello, Hermes. Are you ready for your treatment?"

Contentment replaces the confusion, and Hermes climbs from the pod in the wall—which reminds Bennett of nothing so much as a chest of drawers—and smiles. "I like my treatments," he says.

They navigate the twisting halls of the D.C. dollhouse, Hermes a few paces behind Bennett, inspecting his surroundings.

"What's wrong with the air?" He asks.

Bennett pauses and looks back at him. "Achluophobia," she replies. "It's dark and that scares you."

"Is that bad?"

"Not for you," Bennett says, and her pace increases.

When they reach the imprint room, Bennett hurries Hermes into the chair. The confusion has returned, but Hermes is eager to please and sits down. He wriggles a little to get comfortable; the movement looks natural for this body, far more so than the relaxed, languid motion of a doll. Bennett checks the wedge once more, then begins the imprint.

Hermes inhales sharply in pain, and Topher exhales as sharply in shock.

It's been so long, and she smiles to see him, really him, because she knows that the others were fakes. Only this one has ever been her equal.

Because only the real Topher remembers. He remembers that they're enemies; he remembers that she tried to kill Echo, and that he chose that silly doll over her; he remembers when he first snuck into the D.C. dollhouse, like some geeky James Bond, and hit her in the face in a panic; he remembers the second time he snuck in, when the alarm was raised too soon and, as metal gates were closing over their escape route, he called after Ballard, Echo, and Tony to leave him, because they had what they needed to get Perrin out of office and maybe, just maybe, Bennett would save him.

He remembers Bennett explaining to him that a doll, Hermes, had just left the D.C. house, and that she had convinced her superiors to let Topher take his place. She promised to take good care of him, and she had smiled just like she does now when she told him that she would hide the wedge, so she could wake him up sometimes.

She leans down and pushes his hair out of his face, as he looks at her with tears in his eyes and asks how long it's been.


	2. Topher Brandon's Scan

**Author's Notes: Hello again! I was thrilled to see how popular **_**The Four Tophers of Bennett Halverson **_**was. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and read it! The lovely Kyra Adelaide wanted to know if it was a one-shot; as I told her, yes, it was, but I had a lot more ideas for stories taking place in this AU. So here's one of them. Hopefully I'll add more in the future!**

**I'd like my fellow Topher/Bennett fans to bear with me through this one—I do think it supports the pairing, and I do believe that they're in love and meant for each other and such. If you need an explanation for why Bennett acts as she does, go back and read the end of **_**Four Tophers**_** again.**

"**I know what I know" is from the Epitaphs, and gains most of its meaning to us as an audience in those episodes, but it was a part of Topher's consciousness before that. He says it in **_**Vows**_**. Fran Kranz called it a "mantra" of his, so it does make sense that he would say it here and Bennett would recognize it. It has meaning in this AU, as well.**

**None of these characters are mine. They're Joss's. Joss is boss.**

**Ok, now on to the actual story. Sorry about the long notes.**

"What are you up to?" Topher leaned over Bennett's shoulder, playfully grabbing the mouse from her hand and scrolling up and down the lines of code she had been reviewing for the last two hours.

Bennett laughed and elbowed him, taking the mouse back as he pretended to get the wind knocked out of him and stumbled dramatically around their office. "You pack a punch," he said.

"Good. I'm inspecting Hera's base code for abnormalities. She's showing weird methods of processing, a tendency to question when she should answer, to be specific." She went back to her work.

He returned to his position over her shoulder. "Want help?"

"You're supposed to be troubleshooting Theseus' sexy doctor imprint."

"Yeah, but I'm almost done, and he's not in super high demand right now, we shouldn't need him for days."

Bennett spun around to look at him. "That's logically fallacious. It's exactly as likely that we'll need him tomorrow as that we'll need him a week from now, just less likely that we'll need him any day overall."

"Right. Ok. So what can I help with?" He grinned.

She looked back at the computer and reached towards her keyboard with her good hand, typing out a few commands. "I just sent a sample case to you. Look over it, see if you can come up with an explanation."

Topher went back to his desk. The two worked in silence for another half-hour before Bennett made a quick excuse about getting a file and left the room.

Topher kicked back against the desk, rolling his chair across the room, through the pair of glass doors, and next to the imprint chair. He stood and, after fiddling with the scan settings for a moment, sat down and pulled the switch. It hurt, but then, he had set it not to erase the pain; he didn't want anyone, even himself, messing around with his brain, thank you very much.

"Bennett, I've sent a scan to the main projector to compare with Hera's. The anomalies in behavior could be remnants of gifted brain patterns, thought we could take a look at mine for a baseline. Obviously, I mean, we could have used yours, too, because you're—you know, gifted, I didn't mean we couldn't, I just was in the room here and—"

As he babbled, he slid off the chair and walked into their office. If someone had asked him to explain what he saw in the room in that first moment, he never could have.

Bennett stood at the door to their office, ramrod-straight and still as a hare caught in a predator's gaze. She was staring at the projection that had just appeared at the table between their desks. Bennett was, on the whole, a still person, so that wasn't what shocked Topher. It was the projection. It was the same shade of lime green that all the projections were, but there were none of the other, subtler differences there should have been between it and the smaller projections of Hera's brain. Both had electric stimulators in the prefrontal cortex, both had inhibitors in the hippocampus. Both showed a pair of wires twisting among the lumpy tubes of brain tissue from stimulator to inhibitor, so that a single imprint could affect both memory and personality.

"Bennett, whose brain is that?" he said quietly. "I just sent a scan to the projector. Is something wrong with it?"

"I'm sure it is." Bennett began to walk, almost run, towards the projector, but Topher was closer. He laughed nervously at himself, knowing he was a fool for wanting to see, for certain, whose scan that was. At the same time, he remembered that just this morning he had checked the projector to be sure it was functioning properly. He reached it only a second before she did, but soon enough to read the scan name. She stopped as he read it.

SCAN: IMPRINT: TOPHER BRANDON

ACTIVE: MATCH: HERMES

"Bennett, what… what the hell?" he whispered, still staring at the monitor. He turned around, then, and shouted, "What is that?"

Bennett's back was already turned, and she was marching away with a loud, professional clack! of a heel at each step. He ran forward, intent on stopping her in any way necessary—a fist was raised—but as soon as he was close enough he couldn't do it. Conscience or programming? His mind cried wildly. Instead he shouted.

"What happened to it? I'm Topher Brandon, that's my brain, but someone," he reached both hands up to clutch at the offending organ through his messy hair, "tampered with it! Why didn't you tell me? Bennett, say something, please, I need you to explain this, because you know, I know that you know!"

But he had halted to shout, and she had kept moving, through the door and to the control panel. He realized a second too late what she was doing. The door slammed shut.

"No!" He slapped a hand against the glass door, trying desperately to get to his partner, his friend, his crush, the beautiful, genius, but inexplicably broken woman who he had worked with for the last three years—or the last three hours?

He froze, then stepped back from the door. Only his left hand continued its frenzied movement against his scalp, scratching at it as though he could peel back the skin and pull out the architecture he had seen there. "Hermes," he said, more quietly but loud enough for her to hear through the door. "The messenger god. God of travelers, tricksters, medicine. From the Olympian pantheon." Breathe in, breathe out. "I'm one of yours."

Bennett kept moving on the other side of the door. She crossed the room, face frozen, and picked up an intercom. Her voice was inaudible. She never once looked at Topher. She hadn't since he read the monitor.

"What's wrong with me, Bennett? I must not be on assignments anymore, or I wouldn't be here working with you. It would be a waste of an investment. Or did no one want me? Honestly, I could have told you that, I'm not exactly active material." Bennett's head went up, she glanced at him for just a second. The lamp glimmered off her right eye oddly, just a little lower than it should. But she looked back down. After finishing her call, she sat down, turned away from him, and looked out the door into the hallway.

Topher walked back to the monitor, stared at the scan that had just told him, in the irrefutable way that only a machine can, that he had no humanity. He wasn't a person, he was a program, some well-designed numbers in a database. He had worked with dolls for years—thought he had, at least—and had seen the complex, human levels of thought, consciousness, and personality they displayed. They were lovely beings, a mark of humanity's ascension to godhood through creation; but they weren't human. They weren't original. That's why he never accepted a partial mind wipe, however much a scan hurt; would the gods, after creating man, have then sculpted themselves new bodies of clay?

He wasn't a god; Bennett held that power. His accomplishments were hers, everything he did orchestrated by her spindly, clever hand on invisible strings. He could picture her creating Topher Brandon, her upper teeth biting down gently on her lower lip, hand moving like prewritten clockwork over the keys, her dead left arm limp and forgotten against her thin, upright frame. He no longer saw the monitor, but Bennett's bright eyes and twisted mouth as she worked on a difficult problem.

"Why did you make me love you?"

His question was drowned out by the opening of the doors and the entrance of two of the muscular handlers. He knew them, Morris and Gregor. Neither of them liked him, but he was used to that. Or, he thought he was. Maybe he—or his body—had been wildly popular a few years ago, when it had still been whole and unaltered; maybe he only thought people didn't like him so he could get more work done.

But that was silly. People don't like Topher Brandon. He knows what he knows.

He didn't realize that he was repeating that like a mantra—_I know what I know, I know what I know, I know what I know—_as the handlers took him by the arms and guided him, none too gently, towards the chair until Bennett called out from the door to the imprint room.

"Tell me what you said."

The handlers ignored her, and maneuvered their charge—who was struggling a little, but knew when he was outmatched—into the chair. They were strapping the restraints over his wrists and upper arms when Bennett appeared above Topher, her eyes bright but her face harsh and clinical.

"Tell me what you said."

"I don't—"

"Tell me what you said!"

He had seen her do this before, to the workers and handlers that they laughed at on breaks, the people that they lorded their superior intelligence over. She would repeat a phrase over and over, banging it into them because it made sense to her and if they just listened she could make everything better. It had always scared Topher a little, as evidence that his beloved partner wasn't all there.

"I know what I know." Her eyes narrowed, and she turned away again. "Bennett, please, I just want to know why! Who… who am I?"

"Why did you say it?"

His breath caught in a fierce sob. "Please, Bennett." She stared straight ahead, mouth set. "It just sounded familiar, it sounded right. Why, what does it mean?"

Bennett nodded to someone he couldn't see, and Morris appeared in his field of vision with a piece of cloth that he stuffed in Topher's mouth. Topher coughed, voice stifled.

The programmer—his one-time partner—walked away, but she must not have left the room, because as Morris and Gregor quieted and stood in the corner, their job done, he could hear her talking to Lipman. Topher hadn't heard him enter the room.

Lipman's voice was as official, but somehow rudely personal and arrogant, as ever. "Can we be done with this charade now?"

"No."

"Miss Halverson, will you listen to reason? He's not Brink, he's not a pet, he's a doll. You cannot—"

"I understand he isn't Topher Brink, Mr. Lipman, but his technical expertise is helpful and cannot simply be imprinted into any doll, his brain has held that intelligence and can use it more effectively than the dumb models that make up the rest of the dolls."

"Excuse me, Miss Halverson, but I am aware that that's bullshit. I do know something about the operation of my house. And on a personal level, don't you get tired of whoring your boyfriend out?" _Boyfriend?_

"Hermes gets few romantic assignments, he's more often a best friend or a son. And when he does get one, it's not Topher that I'm giving them. I can't say I don't appreciate their good taste."

There was silence. Topher was having trouble keeping up—who was Brink? Topher Brink, Bennett had said, and Lipman had called him her boyfriend. Was that him? What coward would have become a doll in the very place his girlfriend worked, knowing how it would hurt her?

" 'I know what I know'? he's remembering things, Miss Halverson, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that you're letting him. You're going to fix this, or I'm sending him to the attic. A brain like that would be welcome in the database."

With that, there were a few snaps of patent leather shoes against tile floors, and silence. Topher's mind was still whirling with questions and contradictory certainties—you don't send a volunteering doll to the attic, you don't allow a doll with a connection to an employee to work in a dollhouse with them, you don't keep a doll fit to go on assignments in the house in a job that could be filled by someone without architecture, and who was Topher Brink?

What was he remembering?

_I know what I know._

Bennett pulled a switch, and Topher Brandon was gone.


	3. Remission

**Author's Notes: So I'm a bad person. I leave you with no updates for months and when I come back it's with only two pages and Bennett isn't even in it. For all this, I apologize. Nevertheless, I quite like this chapter, and it sets up some points that will be important to the plot later on. So read on, dear Dollhouse enthusiasts, because we're going back in ti-i-ime! *grooves off stage left, singing, before any of the rotten tomatoes hit***

When Adelle enters her office Topher is already there, spinning in circles in the chair behind her desk. He spins in one direction, then sticks a foot out and slams it hard (she winces) against the edge of the wood desk to stop himself. Then he pushes himself off again to spin the other way.

It's painfully familiar, the repetitive action, the blank look on his face as though he doesn't know he's hurting himself, so Adelle treads carefully towards him.

"Topher?" she says gently.

The foot lashes out again, bringing him to a harsh stop. He looks up at her and bolts out of the chair. But his eyes are alert, and he greets her with a hurried "yes, ma'am!" and a false salute; proof enough that he hasn't relapsed. She releases her breath in a puff of relief. In the months since his—she's calling it an "episode," he's taken to acting as though he can't remember events during it. Part of her is grateful that she doesn't have to deal with the awkwardness of having been mother to a grown (if young) man; the other sad at having to pretend that that connection never existed.

It is an act—she knows that from how he looks at her when the veil between sanity and its loss is particularly thin, as though she's a magnet that's keeping him in this world.

But she'll take her cues from him, for once. She supposes that she owes him that.

"Did you want to say something?"

He stills, and looks at her head-on. "I have to go with the others. To the DC house."

"No." She walks to the cabinet at the back of the room; the cut-glass pitcher doesn't hold vodka anymore, but the moonshine that Tango—Carrie, she thinks, Carrie—managed to throw together is usually palatable and somewhat harder to get drunk on. She pours herself a glass.

"They'll need someone with computer skills. One does not simply hack into the DC mainframe."

"We can imprint someone with those skills. We'll scan your brain, put the same knowledge in Tony or Echo."

Topher turns away from her to look out the window, running his fingers through his hair; he's growing it out again, now that it's his choice. While he had been unwell, his reactions to grooming had been unpredictable and it had been easier to cut his hair than it would have been to brush it regularly. "We can't. I tried, I scanned my brain, and it's not going to work."

Adelle knocks back the glass and places it back on the table. "Elaborate."

"Most skills-languages, fighting, the perfect blow job-can be given to a doll without any memory attachment," he begins, pacing. "All of a sudden, they know kung fu. It's a combination of muscle memory and rewiring the neurons. Rossum has a database with all of these isolated skills, so that they can be combined with the lives we construct to be the person we need. It's how you get sleepers, dolls who have skills without memories of learning them. But not all skills work that way. Some are tied up in the learning process. Conversation. Human interaction. How the brain learns these functions is so tied up in the functions themselves that you can't isolate one from the other. Sometimes, when the memories are particularly strong, a usually isolatable memory is like this." Despite the alcohol, Adelle's stomach feels cold and hollow. She knows all this, Topher isn't speaking to inform. There is something he doesn't want to say and is trying to talk his way around. He continues, "Programming is an isolated skill, stored in Rossum's database. The sort of programming I do isn't. For obvious reasons, Rossum didn't want the ability to imprint dolls easily accessible."

"The only way for us to obtain that skill is to scan it from your brain."

"Exactly," he sighs, and stops in front of her wilted brown potted plant.

"As we did with Victor the first time we visited DC. I fail to see the problem."

Topher runs a hand through his hair again. His breathing quickens and Adelle thinks she can see the blood pulsing in a vein in his neck. On instinct she walks to him and puts a hand on his arm. "Say it as though it's someone else. Pretend we're talking about an active," she suggests.

His words tumble over each other. "The memories associated with the skills needed to crack DC and remove Perrin's information are... traumatic. I wouldn't be able to isolate the knowledge from the instability."

Adelle stares. Her stomach isn't cold anymore; it's gone completely.

Topher is looking at the ground, refusing to meet Adelle's gaze. "You'll understand why it should be me and not an imprint."

She does. She's analytical at heart, and while half of her refuses to consider sending the broken programmer into the lion's den, the other half is already listing the reasons he's the best option. The others don't have his experience with dealing with the guilt that would come along with those memories, there's no chance of it interfering with an imprint, and-

And if he relapsed, the others could overpower him without endangering the mission.

"It's gone away, mostly. Or at least I can control it. I think you can trust me," he says, and he tries to smile but isn't convincing.

As though by silent agreement, Adelle and Topher abandon the illusion that they had spent so long cultivating, and she pulls him into her arms. "All right," she whispers. She wonders, once again, how it is that the boy she hired so many years ago, who walked into hell as though it were Candyland and rose so quickly to be the devil himself, could have been hiding the brave man she foolishly wishes were her son.


	4. Grouping

**Author's Notes: Welcome to the new chapter 4! If you're confused about this, which you're bound to be, please see the updated author's notes in chapter eight, "Healed Wrong." I'll explain everything there.**

**Mostly I wrote this chapter because I really loved the parallels to Sierra and Victor that Topher drew in "Relapse" (which was written before this one). It was fun to play around with that some more. Enjoy the chapter, dear readers!**

The D.C. House doesn't have handlers, per se. Well, there are handlers, but they aren't assigned to any particular active for a long period; Lipman feels that it keeps employees from forming any undue fondness for their charges. It doesn't matter much to Morris; the dolls are all the same, all prewritten scripts and endless discussion of food. They're walking vegetables.

Today he is assigned to Theseus, a shortish, dark haired active who he has supervised before. Lots of R engagements, which are usually boring, although Morris had enjoyed that one where he was a werewolf hunter.

He reviews the engagement parameters-some woman's ex minus the gay-as he leans against the wall in Halverson's office. His ease is feigned; the place is creepy as all hell. It had been bad enough when it was just the girl, with the arm in the sling and the child's voice and the tech that could turn a brain to mush. But now she has company, and that is so much worse.

The kid's just staring. It's weird.

"Remind me again what grouping is," Morris says to the busy Halverson. He looks back at his reading, breaking the accidental staring contest with the active sitting quietly in the corner. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees that this doesn't faze the doll at all; the hazy smile doesn't waver.

Halverson, typing away at one of her monitors as Theseus waits calmly in the reclined chair, sighs. "Grouping is two actives showing an inclination towards being with one another in their doll state. I've been over this. That isn't why he's here."

The active in the corner-Hermes-is completely unaware that he's being discussed. But the programmer's speech pulls his attention from Morris and he stares at her instead, blue eyes wide and attentive. It's weird how the dolls don't slump. The kid has been sitting in that stool in that corner for two hours now, unless he went somewhere between now and the last time Morris was in here, and he's in the same place, same position, hands still folded in his lap.

"Ok, then, tell me why he is."

"You won't understand. Really, I preferred when you didn't talk to me."

Morris did, too. "You didn't have a doll hanging around in your office all day then. I'm confused."

"Of course you are," Halverson sniffed delicately.

"Don't talk down to me." He pauses. "Is it confidential?"

"No, it's just difficult." Morris looks up at her with his eyebrows drawn together, letting her know that he's nearing the end of his rope. "To believe in grouping you'd need to believe in persistence of original personality. Which this house does not."

"No way. I think it's you, Halverson. He's grouping with you." Halverson doesn't reply, just continues staring and typing at her computer. Morris puts down the report and walks over to Hermes. The active looks up at him and smiles blankly. "That right, Hermes? How do you feel about Ms. Halverson here?"

"Dr. Halverson is nice. Her treatments make me my best."

"See?" Halverson says, leaning around her computer to glare pointedly at Morris. "Programmed answer. It isn't me."

Morris continues his questioning. "Then why are you here?"

Hermes smiles and turns to the programmer. "Dr. Halverson is nice," he repeats. Halverson ducks back behind her computer and doesn't say a word.

"You say you think he's here because of his original personality," Morris says uneasily, replaying Halverson's technobabble in his head. Halverson rolls her eyes but doesn't bother to correct him. "He's not gonna end up like the freaky L.A. doll, right?"

Halverson bites off a sharp reply, but doesn't answer the question. "Funny you should mention her."

That look is his signal to back off. You don't want to bring down Medusa's wrath, they joke in the break room, but it's a lesson you should take to heart. If the programmer has it in for you, you'll be out of the house in a month at most. Rumor said the glitches that got the last Hephaestus sent to the Attic hadn't been glitches at all, but malicious software programmed into him after his original insulted Halverson before his wipe.

No, not to be trifled with.

He's not going to see what lengths she'll go to to protect her pet doll. The little blond Hermes-only male doll in the house shorter than Theseus, since most of the guys are freakishly tall-seems to wander up here on his own, so if there's anything there it's mutual.

After another minute or so, Theseus rises from the chair, a toothy grin covering half his face. "You the driver?" he says, pointing a finger at Morris.

"That's me."

"Excellent." He rattles off an address that Morris already has programmed into his GPS. "I'm going to visit my girl."

"I'm sure she'll be glad to see you," Morris replies, as the two leave the room, Theseus still chatting happily.

Hermes watches as Morris leaves. "He made you angry," he observes.

Some of the tension leaves the programmer's shoulders. "He did."

"Do you not like him?"

"I don't."

"Then I don't like him, either." Hermes' smile widens, and Halverson dons one to match, happy to see him so pleased with himself.

Halverson rises from her chair and walks over to the seated doll. She places a hand on his head and strokes his blond hair for a moment, then walks to her desk and returns with a glazed pottery bowl.

"Would you like some wasabi peas, Hermes?"

He takes the bowl from her and lifts one to his mouth. "Thank you, Dr. Halverson."

Two days later, Morris will remember his conversation with Halverson and decide to snoop around some more. He'll look up Hermes' file in the database and find most of the normal paperwork: health reports from the doctor, physical profile, list of engagements, client statistics. The only form missing will be the all-important deal with the devil, the consent form on which the actives sign away the next five years. He'll close the file with a snap and push Hermes and Halverson out of his mind, knowing that he doesn't want to get involved.

Three weeks later, Morris will be sent to the Attic for inappropriate behavior towards the active Theseus.


	5. Mine

**Author's Notes: This is the new chapter five! If you're confused about these new chapters, please let me direct your attention to the updated author's notes in chapter eight, "Healed Wrong." I'll explain the changes there.**

**I hope that everyone enjoys this chapter. I spent quite some time deciding if I wanted to go this route for the relationship between Chris and Bennett; as you'll see, it adds some new layers to what was already a... shall we say complex situation. Tell me what you think in the comments!**

**Warnings: There's no explicit sex in here, but there are themes of dominant/submissive relationships. If you don't want to read it, but like the fanfic, then I'll tell you now there are no huge plot reveals in here, just some more development of the relationship. You can skip ahead without being confused.**

"That he went back in time changed a bunch of stuff about the future-such as, hot but sweet Agent Brown is now hot but harsh Ms. Lewis. You really didn't get all this from the episode?"

"I was working, I could only concentrate with a fraction of my brain."

Chris threw up his hands. "You can't do that with these things, Bennett! You have to grasp the subtleties of time travel and you can't do that with half the brain."

"As in, his actions millions of years before man changed her name and occupation?"

"It's not an exact science!"

The elevator dings open and Bennett and Chris begin the ascent to Bennett's apartment. The building is an artistic white marble one with turn of the century detailing, in a quieter section of D.C. Most of it she's never even seen. For most of her career at the Dollhouse, early every day she would make the trek from her apartment to her car in the garage and late every night she would go back, then spend an hour or two reading and go to bed.

Recent events have made the apartment a much more pleasant place to be, and she's even used a few vacation days to spend the daylight hours on her own couch eating snack food, playing complicated board games, watching TV, and generally enjoying herself with her new boyfriend, fresh from the imprint chair.

Chris holds takeout from the "gourmet rabbit food buffet" (his words-it had been her turn to chose the restaurant) they had gone to in one hand and the other in Bennett's more slender one. She wraps her fingers around his and smiles up at him, white little teeth glinting in the bright elevator lights. Dinner was lovely, but she had spent most of it looking forward to what would come after.

The door slides open and the two of them walk quickly down the hall, worn leather shoes and sensible black heels making quiet pads on the shallow carpet. Bennett reaches the door before the other and turns her key in the double locks, pushing open the door and ushering him in.

He's barely put down the takeout when she's pushed him up against the wall, twisting one arm behind his back so she can keep it place while her good hand grabs onto his free wrist. She bites his lip sharply so that he gasps, forcing her way in and kissing him roughly, so much more so than on the streets in the fading light as they walked back. He isn't resisting, but he doesn't move, keeping the hand at his side in a fist so that he won't reach out to touch her and break away from her thin fingers around his wrist.

Bennett suddenly pulls away, mouth pursed with annoyance. "Damn," she says quietly, her cheeks reddening. "I left them in the drawer. Be right back."

Chris cracks up. He's got this goofy grin on his face and he tips his head back with what can only be described as a chortle; the beat change breaks the pleasantly building tension so completely that Bennett finds herself suppressing a giggle of her own. She frowns instead. "I am going to make you pay for that in a moment, Pliskin."

"Please do," he says emphatically, with another laugh. "I look forward to it, ma'am."

"Well... you'd better." She's still working on the dominatrix-speak. And the rest of it, too, obviously, or she wouldn't be trying to force away a blush as she rummaged through her bedside drawer for handcuffs. But Chris has never done this with anyone else, either, so at least they're learning together.

It would have been nice to do this with Topher first. In another world, how would they have reached this point? Would there have been ages of skirting the question before one of them asked quietly if perhaps a whip or two could be added to the relationship?

It's an interesting but ultimately pointless exercise to guess whether she would have programmed Chris to match her more slightly more paraphiliac interests if the desire hadn't already been present in Topher's mind. Logically, the idea shouldn't bother her; he'd enjoy it either way, and it wasn't as though he'd remember. But the thought feels wrong, somehow. Like Topher would have been awake somewhere, angry with her. But the two of them were compatible on a number of levels, it seemed, so it was another facet of his personality copy/pasted into Chris.

Bennett's hand closes around the cuffs and she pulls them out, checking to be sure that the release switch is working. Really, she muses, the whole situation is like a fantasy, like one of the stories she read late at night and deleted from her Internet history after. It isn't lost on her that she owns Topher, body and soul; sure, technically, he's Rossum's prisoner, but she's the reason he's alive and she's the one putting thoughts in his head. She has created him, every one of him, and they all love her for it, even the ones who she didn't program to do so. She's been watching Brandon's feelings grow from the friendship that she wrote to the unspoken passion it is now with the double eyes of a starry-eyed schoolgirl and a scientist.

She leaves her glasses on the bedside table and strides back out into the living room. Chris has removed his jacket and checkered outer shirt, leaving on his blue t-shirt; he's several inches taller than her and well-built, but somehow still looks beautifully vulnerable. He's standing by the couch, and when she reaches him she grabs his arm and yanks it down to cuff him to the carved armrest in a swift, smooth motion that she's been practicing for weeks. It's not easy to dominate someone when one of your arms is dead. She knots her hand into his hair and kisses him once, roughly, before pushing to his knees.

After all, she thinks, what's the point in owning someone if he doesn't know that he's yours?


	6. Relapse

**Author's Notes: Well, it looks like having other stories I should be writing is a really good motivation to write more on this one. So have another chapter, this time with extra plot! We're starting where Four Tophers left off, so this will be the first chapter with actual Topher/Bennett interaction. If you have opinions on how I handled that, I'd love to hear them.**

**In other news, this fic can now also be found on my tumblr account, helenofeddis. The link is on my profile. Happy reading!**

**UPDATE: This used to be chapter four, now it's chapter six. Please go to chapter eight, "Healed Wrong," for an explanation if you want one.**

"How," Topher's breath catches and he takes another breath before starting again. "How long?"

"About five months," Bennett says quietly. She snaps out of her reverie, then, and lifts her hand from his unusually neat hair. Reaching her good arm across him, she quickly straps the restraints around his arms before he's aware enough to try to escape. Once that's taken care of, she adjusts the imprinting chair so that he's sitting and able to face her.

She pulls a chair next to him and says, "I've missed you."

Topher says nothing. Hardly a minute ago, it seems, this room was full of people: three handlers escorting him to the chair, Lipman directing them, Harding watching from the corner with a reptilian smile, and Bennett herself, talking calmly as she prepared her workspace to install the active architecture in his brain.

"Of course," she said, speaking to both him and Harding as though recording another lecture, "We have the technology that could wipe the brain without architecture, but it creates a more stable environment for imprints for the wiring to be present."

Now it's just the two of them in the room, and it's five months later. Topher notices that he's wearing different clothes, a doll's plain t-shirt and sweatpants.

"What's happened? Has anything changed?" he asks, biting back an inquiry after Adelle. Better that DC doesn't know that the two of them were close.

At that, Bennett loses her soft smile. "You know I can't tell you that, Topher."

"Of course. When you're in the Matrix, you don't want to remember what's outside," he says with a bitter grin.

"I've done the best I could with limited resources and without compromising my house to the LA branch. Of course, I understand that you're upset but at least we're together."

"We're not together, you've been with-whoever's been rooming in my skull."

She answers excitedly, "But that's what's wonderful. It's still you, Topher, just a different you. Look here." She rises and goes to the cabinet in the wall where she keeps the frequently used imprints. She pulls two wedges from it and returns to Topher, holding one in front of him. "This is Topher Brandon. He works with me in the lab. Just as genius as you. And this," she holds up the other, "is Christopher Pliskin." Topher quirks an eyebrow, and Bennett giggles. "I thought you'd like that. He goes by Chris, in case LA gets intel that I have a boyfriend. We can keep them from getting pictures, so you wouldn't be recognized, but we can't be too careful." Topher does his best to keep from showing how precious that tidbit is-that LA is still a concern, that Rossum doesn't rule the world quite yet. "Both of them are based on your scan, just like Senator Perrin. I only changed a few things, a few memories. Occasionally a moral reservation."

"You said you made him better. Did you make me better?"

"No. I couldn't. But I did all right." Bennett smiles shyly, and he's distracted by the perfect little teeth that peek out when she does so. "We celebrated my birthday last month," she says. "Chris and I did, at my apartment. It was the best birthday I've ever had."

It sounds almost logical when she explains it, and who is he to talk of insanity? He laughs, and his voice breaks. "At least we're together," he echoes.

"Exactly. I love you, Topher." Topher's breath catches; he knew that, he supposed, ever since their kiss in LA, but that conversation was interrupted by Whiskey's attempt on Bennett's life. Although it was unsuccessful, they were too dedicated to recreating Caroline's wedge to continue after that. Then Rossum's troops arrived, spiriting Bennett back to DC before they could speak to each other. Bennett stands, saying, "Surrounded by uncertainty, the human brain tends to gravitate towards that which it knows without doubt. It's a survival mechanism."

She braces her right hand against the back of his chair and leans forward, pressing a gentle kiss to his mouth. Her lips are as delicate as he remembered, her eyes as beautiful when they flutter closed. The chain on her glasses knocks against his cheek. She's right, he thinks, as he begins to kiss her back, first softly and then faster, mouthing his own "I love you"s, because his mind is already rationalizing this. If he has no hope of returning to LA without rescue, why not enjoy being in the company of one of the few brains that surpasses his, the only woman-the only person, period-who Topher can't read like an open book? She's the Catwoman to his Batman, and so very close to perfect.

With his mind no longer his own, it's the one thing he knows without doubt: that he's in love with her.

Suddenly he hears Priya's voice, choked with tears. "I love him," she had said. "Is that real?" He had confirmed that it was, hating himself for having tried so hard to destroy that spark in Sierra and Victor.

Does every one of his imprints love Bennett? Are they another love story for the ages, that survives however abused the mind?

But it isn't just Nolan's blood under his fingernails now. It's the whole world's. The entire Earth is becoming a slasher film and children's hour by turns; they did that, he and Bennett. Their legacy would be Judgment Day and the rise of the Terminators.

His mind, already held together by nothing more than twine, breaks all over again.

Bennett knows something is wrong. She's stopped kissing him, and pulls back to look him in the eye. He doesn't look back; he's hung his head, tears running down his face. "I didn't mean to," he whispers. "I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to-I didn't think it was real, I just wanted to know, I didn't mean it-"

"Topher!" Bennett says, putting a hand to his forehead as though she thinks he's sick. She runs to her computer screen and checks the wedge again, to make sure it isn't something wrong with his programming.

"That's all I wanted, I just wanted to know, and now the whole world's forgetting. I know now, I suppose, maybe that makes it worth it. Knowledge for peace. Only traded with a lizard instead of a snake," he laughs a little at his own joke. "I know what I know, Boyd. I know what I know, I know what I know-"

Bennett looks back at him, eyes wide with panic. "Mental breakdown," she assures herself. "I can't be the prompt. It's something bigger." She turns back to the screen. "Topher, everything's going to be ok, you're just glitching. Don't worry, this has happened before and it was nothing more than a shock. Your brain's just a little delicate right now." She hopes her words are getting through to him. This is far more painful than when it was Topher Brandon stuck in his own mind, repeating phrases and stammering-Brink is a real person, her real person, and seeing that whatever broke before is still there is troubling as well as heartbreaking.

There's no way to fix this other than to wipe his brain and scan it again, looking for the weakness. Quickly she bends the chair back to its prone position. Bennett puts her hand on his cheek again, mirroring her earlier action, wishing she could say goodbye to a coherent Topher. But he calms down at the caress, and looks up at her with wide blue eyes.

"Don't worry," she says, kissing him once more. "I'll find a way to fix this."


	7. Shifting Allegiances

**Author's Notes: Well, I know where this story is headed now. That means there will be a lot more connection between installments, although I still wouldn't call them chapters and they'll still jump around in time and tense. But there is a plan. I think it's a pretty good one. If you've got the time, keep me updated on what you think as it progresses. In other news, this will be the last installment before The Cabin in the Woods comes out, so I'll just say-go see it! After three years of waiting, I think it deserves a brilliant opening. Perhaps one large enough to make the world acknowledge the genius of Fran Kranz? We can hope.**

**UPDATE: Chapter five has become chapter seven. Please go to chapter eight, "Healed Wrong," if you want an explanation.**

Lipman entered Bennett's office just as she and Topher Brandon finished wiping Hera after a basic romantic assignment. Topher's face was lit up by a proud grin-his idea that previous gifted brain patters were affecting Hera's imprints had been correct (it had been a good thought, so Bennett had let him arrive at it again rather than presenting it as her own to the newly imprinted Brandon). The assignment had gone perfectly, and Hera had been just as stereotypically Irish as the client had wanted.

"Did I fall asleep?" Hera said.

At a signal from Bennett, looking over the diagnostics at the computer, Topher took over the script. "For a little while."

"Shall I go now?"

"If you like."

Hera rose from the chair and walked out, her long red hair swinging behind her. Lipman stood aside for her, saying, "The others are having lunch. Go join them." Hera nodded once and did as he said.

At the sound of his voice, Bennett and Topher leapt to attention, Bennett with a respectful "Mr. Lipman," and Topher with a rushed, "hey, Mr. Boss-Man."

Lipman frowned. "Miss Halverson, can we not teach him some manners?"

"Sorry, Mr. Lipman, I guess they left that out of the imprint," Topher joked with a shrug. Luckily he turned away then, back to the chair to remove Hera's Irish wedge, or he would have seen Lipman roll his eyes and glare at Bennett.

"What can we do for you?" Bennett said, carefully skipping over the bottomless pit Topher's comment had opened in the conversation.

"I need to speak with you. Not you," he said as Topher spun in his chair to join him and Bennett.

The young man's very hair seemed to slink back from the older man at the barked command. Topher wasn't sure what he had done to make Lipman hate him so much, but he hadn't been fired yet and hoped to remain that way.

Bennett straightened the black sling over her shoulder and nodded. "Of course, Mr. Lipman. If you'll give me a moment." She turned to her partner. "Would you like a treatment, Topher?"

He started, attention diverted from the dollhouse's intimidating boss. "What's that? Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks, Bennett." He clambered into the chair, still talking. "Once you two are done we should look over the assignments for next week, we might be able to modify a few imprints for reuse, the Spring Break crowd never wants anything particularly unique-"

The glass case folded over his head and lit up neon blue. The lights reflected off his eyes, turning them electric as he twitched from the pain, then receding as he relaxed and sat up, all the humor and nervous energy of Topher Brandon wiped away.

"Hello, Hermes. How are you feeling?" Bennett began. Lipman watched her face carefully as she finished the script, calmly reciting the words that welcomed an active back into the house. He saw the sadness in her brown doe eyes as Hermes walked away to join Hera and the other dolls for lunch. Harding had told him that the blond fool was the last word in bait and blackmail against all of their enemies, but Lipman wasn't buying it-he was fairly certain that killing Topher Brink would end a lot more problems than it would cause. But, to be fair, that might have been why Harding was the mastermind.

The two of them silently moved into Bennett's office, and she closed the door behind them. Once they'd taken seats and the thin woman had placed cups of tea-of carefully monitored temperature-in front of them, Lipman began to speak. "I'll tell you now, all of this is off the books. I've looped all of the cameras in this room-anyone watching them will never know we were in here or what we talked about." He waited for a response, but none came, and he continued. "Our house has changed allegiances. We have found remaining under Rossum's leadership to be detrimental to our interests."

She tilted her head to the side. "Who, exactly, are you planning to support instead?"

"Mr. Harding and his associate Mr. Ambrose have shown themselves to be more proactive in their management of the technology in the transforming world. They have," he paused, "procured their own copies of much of Rossum's work and, so far, distributions have been profitable."

Bennett's eyes went dark. "Distributions. They sold the audible imprint signal that-that LA developed before it closed itself off."

"They did, with the stipulation that it would not be used in areas in which their interests are currently active."

"I work for Rossum," Bennett said flatly.

"Not anymore." Lipman reached into the breast pocket of his jacket. "Usually, I would allow you to continue under the impression that Rossum is still giving your orders as well as your paychecks. But we need something of yours and it would be considerably easier to have your help in dealing with it." He pulled out two small photographs and set them on the table between him and the young programmer.

The top picture was her desk, from her apartment outside of the dollhouse. It had been swept clear, her one-handed keyboard and bamboo pencil case shoved to the back. In the center was the box with the tag that named her "princess of the galaxy," open to reveal only tissue paper within. The wedge was beside it. The label reading "TOPHER BRINK, ORIGINAL" in Bennett's square one-handed writing was prominently displayed. The second photograph was of Topher strapped in the chair, and her leaning in to kiss him. It wasn't from any of the security cameras. She had turned them all off, and anyway, it wasn't from the correct angle for any of them.

Lipman smiled, his cheeks bunching up and his whole face oozing self-satisfaction. "You aren't in trouble, Miss Halverson. There's no harm in a fantasy as long as it's kept under control. In fact, it's good that the wedge is available; I'm told that Mr. Brink will prove to be valuable bait. But we have taken the wege and are keeping it secure. You will have access to it as long as you remain in compliance with the house's new objectives."

Bennett nodded. She should have expected that she couldn't get away with keeping the wedge a secret, she thought. But she could use this to her advantage. It was quite possible that if she played her cards right, she could have everything she ever wanted. "In that case," she said, raising her cup of tea to her lips, "may I make a request?"

"Of course."

"Mr. Harding was partially behind the plan to destroy the LA house. I don't believe he holds them in high regard."

Lipman paused patiently before confirming, "yes, that house will not survive his plans."

The teacup returns to the table, tiny ripples forming in the liquid. "I want the doll known by the call sign Echo to die. Slowly."

"That can be arranged. I will keep you updated."

With that, they exchanged a few empty remarks and Lipman left, pleased with his work. The genius would, he was sure, be invaluable in the takeover of Rossum, even if she was as mentally unstable as her desires showed. Honestly, he thought, shaking his head, we're blackmailing her with the boyfriend she's keeping in a box under her bed and rewarding her with the death of her college crush.

Bennett was equally deep in thought. She sat in front of her computer, her hand quickly typing out the commands as she formed a new imprint model, ready for memories and personalities to be melded into it. The file, designed to hide in the system and be innocuous if found, was called only "+".

If things went well, she could have everything she wanted. If they didn't, she and Topher would need a Plan B.


	8. Healed Wrong

**Author's Notes: And we're back to LA, in the present this time. I had to include Paul in this because he was the only person for the role. Alas. I don't really like Paul. To make up for it, there's lots of Adelle and Bennett being angry with each other.**

**UPDATE: If you're confused by the switching around of the chapters (this used to be chapter six), here's a quick explanation. I wanted to add some new stuff into what I had already written before moving on to the next phase of the story. As such, there are now two new chapters, "Grouping" and "Mine" implanted in there. I hope you enjoy them! If you've got a ridiculously good memory you might also notice a few small changes in "Topher Brandon's Scan" which hopefully make it sound better. Thanks for reading, sorry for any confusion!**

**UPDATE THE SECOND: This chapter is cursed, methinks. The last couple of lines were missing, and I found this out the moment I left my laptop for two weeks! So, no more weird inexplicable ending to this.**

"What it all adds up to is Echo thinking she has an in at Tuscon. She can get in, take care of Boyd, and get out."

Finished, Paul folds his hands together, one nested inside the other, and waits for Adelle to respond. She's reminded, suddenly, of the time Topher had called Paul the Incredible Hulk-it's apt. He looks like at any moment his shoulders would rise and he'd grow to thrice his size. And he's certainly unstable enough. But she works with what she has, and Paul is nothing if not dedicated to... whatever cause Echo is following at the moment.

"Boyd Langdon dead," she muses, ducking her head in thought. "Cut off the head of the beast. Either we'll save the world or we'll be killed by the floundering body."

"Or both," Paul interjects wryly.

She rises, briefly towering over him; she moved the low sofas from her old office down here, to her underground one, for just this reason. Being tall is another point in her favor in any conversation. "You learned this from Echo herself, I presume?"

"Yes. The scan is from six days ago, we found it in the drop box this morning. Gina has the wedge with her in the lab." Gina-once known as Hotel-took over for Topher during his convalescence. While unable to create imprints herself, she can work the machine and, most importantly, is one of the few former Dolls willing to get near the tech.

"I wish to speak with her."

They pick up Tony as they pass the room that had become their armory. Like Gina, he isn't afraid of the tech and usually volunteers to take the imprints Echo sends back from her ventures into the world above. The three of them make their way up the stairs and into the imprinting room.

It's still Topher's, in Adelle's mind. Gina spends her free time downstairs with the others, so his clutter remains strewn around the office. His beloved whack-a-mole is frozen with a single mole peeking out of its den. If it weren't for the trademark half black, half mousy brown hair-Gina's hair had been dyed when she was a Doll, and it grew out slowly-perhaps the bent form in the spinning chair could have been the chief tech himself. She blinks the memory out of her eyes. Topher is, by all accounts, dead, and attaching useless sentiment to his former haunt won't change that.

"You want to talk to Echo?" Gina says, as she turns to look at them.

Adelle arranges herself by the wall. "If you don't mind."

Tony settles into the chair, and Gina sticks the wedge into the slot. A little fiddling with the controls, and Tony is quivering under the blue light of the imprint machine.

The chair lifts him up, and he opens his eyes slowly.

That's the first sign. Echo's eyes fly open, she's never this languid.

"I don't know who you were expecting, but I'm not it." Paul's hand flies to the gun at his side and he points it at the enigma in their chair. It speaks like a Doll, leading Adelle-now carefully positioned by the door in case she needs to make a run for the armory-to believe this isn't a person, but a protocol imprint, meant to accomplish a task and nothing else.

The imprint continues. "Your chair was hijacked. The parameters of my engagement were sent to the computer as my imprint was sent to the chair. You can look over them if you question my intentions; I am only here to carry a message, and have no ability in physical combat."

Gina hurriedly checks over the file and nods her agreement. Paul lowers his gun, but keeps it ready.

"Adelle Dewitt?" the imprint questions, rising and turning to her.

"Yes."

"I have a message from Bennett Halverson at the DC Dollhouse."

Bennett Halverson. The tech even Topher had called brilliant. The one person who might have convinced him that caring wasn't just pain, and when he threw his last hope on her she let Rossum take him. Topher was dead, and Adelle didn't know if who she blamed more: herself or the woman who had sent this imprint. "I have nothing to say to Bennett Halverson."

"Christopher Brink is alive."

Everyone in the room starts, but Adelle most of all. Her eyes are wide as she says, "Say that again."

"Christopher Brink is alive. He is being kept as a Doll in the DC Dollhouse."

Disbelief shuts down Adelle's brain, refusing to let her hope. "You can't expect me to believe that. Halverson is a Rossum employee."

"The DC Dollhouse no longer answers to Rossum, and Bennett Halverson no longer answers to anyone. She wishes to speak to you. Do you have a pen?" Gina produces one, and a pad of paper, and the imprint recites a web URL, then a string of numbers and letters. "That will take you to a secure two-way video feed. At twenty-two hours tonight, Bennett Halverson will be on that feed. She will give you proof of life for Brink, and you can speak further." The imprint moves back to the chair and sits. "Although I must tell you not to expect to have him back."

Adelle steps forward. "What is that supposed to mean?" She snaps.

"I don't know anything else. That is the message I was sent to carry." The imprint looks at Gina expectantly, who in turn looks to Adelle.

Adelle closes her eyes and nods. There's no point in trying to get more information out of an imprint that isn't a full person.

Paul starts speaking as soon as the imprint is gone. "You can't listen to them. Topher is dead, she's trying to lure you in. We need to concentrate on Echo's plan to-"

"Please be quiet, Mr. Ballard."

"You can't honestly be planning to-"

"Do not presume. I am giving the thought due consideration, nothing more."

"What's wrong?" Tony has risen up in the chair between them, surprised by the fight that he has woken up to.

Paul is fuming, and Adelle is deep in thought, her mouth drawn downwards with the pain that has been growing heavier day by day. Gina explains. "The machine was hijacked-apparently, Bennett Halverson has Topher and wants to speak to Adelle on a videochat."

"Topher?" Tony looks to Adelle. "He's dead."

"I'm aware," she says, louder than intended. "Gina. Can you set up a connection that's untraceable to this location?"

"I can't. But Computer Hacker Ken can." She stands to rustle through a drawer of wedges, pulling one out to show to the group that is, in fact, labeled "Computer Hacker Ken" in Topher's barely legible writing.

"Good. Then there's no harm in speaking with Halverson, at the very least."

She walks from the room, leaving an angry Paul, a busy Gina, and a confused Tony behind her.

They choose the most nondescript location possible for the meeting. Adelle sits in front of a plain concrete background in a storage room in the lower floors of the Dollhouse. The computer is before her on a table. She's wearing a microphone that will only pick up what she says, in case the others-the small room is, outside of the camera's view, also occupied by Paul, Tony, Priya, and Dr. Saunders.

Adelle wonders why she's here. There was, on the surface, no love lost when Saunders heard of Topher's death, but they had had a strange sort of connection, a rare bond between creator and the creation that knows her origin.

Does she want to hear that he is alive? Or is she silently hoping that her god really is dead?

At ten seconds until connection, Adelle clicks through a few menus to send the screen to another computer that the others in the room can see.

She takes a few breaths and calms herself, ready for whatever comes next.

And then the window lights up.

Halverson has made no effort to hide her whereabouts. It's a bedroom, probably her own, with white walls adorned only by two abstract paintings. There are three bookshelves stuffed with thick volumes. A neatly made bed crouches in the corner of the room. The door behind her is open, showing a thin slice of a larger room behind, which is dark but lit by the bluish twitching light of an unseen television screen.

Halverson nods. "Ms. Dewitt."

Adelle returns the greeting. They're not in the DC House, encouraging the hope that Halverson is not working in concert with them. Though that could be a trick. She's trying not to notice the light of the TV-it implies that there's another person in the house, and although it's likely that it's someone from Rossum come to deliver a threat of some sort at an opportune moment, she's steeling herself against thinking about the other option.

"Ms. Dewitt, you know already that I have split from both Rossum and-other forces in control of the tech. Free of those impediments, I wish to trade intelligences. I've offered you proof that Brink is alive as a good faith gift."

"Well, then." Adelle is trying very hard to not tell the girl to get on with it.

Halverson lifts her right hand to her glasses to straighten them. "Please keep in mind that you might find this disturbing. I offered you life, not personality." With that, she makes a few motions, obviously minimizing the computer window, then removing her headset, and turns to call to the other room. "Chris, come show me that website you were talking about earlier!"

"On my way!" It's Topher's voice. Without a doubt. It's pitched high and a little nasal, and it's just as carefree as it had been all those many lifetimes ago, back when all the Dolls had signed up for the job and they were giving people what they needed.

He's in the doorway, and the look matches the voice-this could be the same Topher that ordered Dominic to bring him a refrigerator. He's wearing his usual two layers of clashing shirts. His rumpled khakis match his rumpled blond hair-though the lack of recent brushing can't hide that it's neater than it was. There's a sweep cut into it that wasn't there before, that Topher would never have been self-aware enough to put there. It's trying to look young and quirky.

It's something that the Dollhouse stylists would come up with.

Adelle could kill Halverson in a hundred painful ways.

Topher-although she remembers that he responded to the name "Chris"-bounds over to the computer and leans over Halverson's shoulder, smiling at her with adoration glowing from his eyes. Then he's looking at the computer screen, so close to the camera that it's as if he's looking directly at her, and it's all Adelle can do to not shout at the screen or to reach out to him.

"That's it," he says, pulling back. "You can download whatever game you want from there, plus the mods. Start with Portal 2, after you get through the tutorial we can play multiplayer." He walks back out. Just as Halverson is replacing her headset, he pokes his head back through the doorframe, and says, "I call Atlas!"

Halverson frowns in consternation. "I'll have to ask what that means later."

"He's the round one with the eye. You can be Peabody." The voice floats back from the room beyond, which is once again lit up by the television.

The girl is still smiling as she brings Adelle back onto her screen and focuses on her once again. She's about to say something, but Adelle interrupts her.

"You are to return him to this house immediately. This is kidnapping, and coercion, and from the way he looked at you it's rape as well. I have come to expect horrors from Rossum and this is another, such dishonorable treatment of a prisoner whose mental state is-"

Halverson cuts in. "That's what I wished to speak to you about, Ms. Dewitt. His mental state. Your righteous indignation is all well and good, but it wouldn't have been much help when Harding was planning on having him tortured and killed on the spot. I can return Dr. Brink to his former self, if not to your care, but I need information. I tell you what's going on at the DC House, you tell me how to fix Topher."

Adelle closes her eyes for a moment. The thought of cooperating with Halverson-and with that, entrusting Topher's wellbeing to the sociopathic witch-is repulsive, but with Echo so close to eliminating Boyd any information is needed. She looks to the others in the room. Tony is stoic, Priya looks a little amazed-Adelle suddenly remembers that the woman has likely never seen Topher happy-Dr. Saunders' eyes are crinkled with what she can only assume is appreciation for the irony, and Paul is strangely pensive. It's an odd look for him.

"By all physical signs she's telling the truth," he says. "And Rossum-or whoever else would be playing this game-has nothing to gain by letting us know that he is alive. In fact, if they have some alternative motive in keeping him around, they have a great deal to lose."

Adelle nods and speaks to Halverson again. "What do you know about Rossum?"

The girl begins to relate recent events. Adelle isn't shocked to learn that Harding and Ambrose have been plotting to take over the company, or that they copied the plans she gave to them for themselves. She is surprised by Lipman's allegiance to them, but if everything that Halverson says is true, they've been successful and Lipman is drawn to success. Paul's mouth drops open and he takes the pen and paper offered by Dr. Saunders to take notes feverishly. Adelle wonders if he remembers that they're recording the conversation, or if he's forgotten in the rush of newfound knowledge to send to Echo.

"And now it's your turn, Ms. Dewitt," Halverson finishes.

"What do you need to know?"

"I kept a copy of Christopher Brink's original scan, from the moment before we installed the Active architecture. I'm concerned that it may be compromised."

"Compromised?"

"Instability in the brain. It's unavoidable, whenever the Active Hermes-that's him-is imprinted as Dr. Brink, he will after a short period of time revert to insanity. I don't know what could have caused it, but either way something in the program is glitching. I need a new scan. If anyone has one, it's going to be you."

Adelle needs a drink desperately. She sets her jaw. "You won't find an earlier scan. Not unless you go very far back. The insanity isn't a glitch, Ms. Halverson, it's part of him."

"What was that?" She asks as though she's misheard.

"Topher went insane shortly after the mass imprinting technology wiped our city off the map. He had stabilized when he was captured; I can imagine that waking up to discover that the woman he loved and trusted has enslaved him would push him over the edge once again."

Paul shakes his head. Don't make her angry, her information is too valuable.

"Ah," Halverson says, biting down on her lip. "Though that should be a fairly simple fix, find the part of the brain that is unstable and replace it with a healthy scan."

"I'm told that it's more difficult than that. Something about memories being the cause?"

Halverson turns to look toward the man in the other room. "Really? Intriguing. And these memories are-?"

"The invention and misuse of his tech."

"That's problematic." She looks back to Adelle. "I'll be in touch, Ms. Dewitt. Do continue your efforts to connect Rossum and Perrin. It would make my life a great deal simpler."

With that, Halverson shuts off the connection.

And the screen goes black.


	9. Recon

**Author's Notes: Hey, readers! Sorry for the huge delay, been moving into college! It's all very exciting. Hopefully you'll get the next chapter soon, it should be fun to write… given that the next chapter will be the contents of the card you're about to find out about. Enjoy!**

Bennett flips the pages of the personality description at the top of the pile. There are eleven of them. "Not a lot of information for a reconstruction," she says quietly. Returning to the first page, she finds a summary of the assignment and begins to read.

Her question is quickly answered-the client had only met the person briefly. A promising young student at Quantico the client had mentored for a few weeks, who had died four months back as a probationary agent in the violent crimes unit. It didn't matter whether the construction was accurate as long as the client got some closure on the intense but, surprisingly, totally platonic friendship they had had. It reads like a classic Hermes imprint, and she isn't surprised to see his name printed in the active request line.

"The client's from L.A., perhaps they can reminisce together," Lipman says, smiling coldly.

"Nonsense," she replies. "Danny Knight has never left the East Coast."

o0o

Danny gets out of the car and looks side to side-he spots Loomis at a table under a green striped umbrella and strides towards her. She's sitting straight as a pole and her eyes dart side to side; Loomis never really liked people much, she's more of a computer person, so he ignores that. Some intelligent conversation always put her at ease, and he has that to spare. Maneuvering around the crowded tables huddled in front of the glass windows of the café he notices that she's not alone; a man around Danny's own age, with close-cropped dark hair, sits with her. Boyfriend? Unlikely, Loomis is fairly rigid in her tastes and rarely goes above a few years' age difference. Student? Possible, maybe the man is younger than he looks; Danny is only a year out of training himself.

He reaches the table before he can draw a safe conclusion, so he ignores the newcomer for the moment and greets Loomis with a hug. "Haven't seen you in ages!" he says.

"Yeah, you too." Now that's odd. Loomis is always reserved, but for how close they had grown during training the greeting was practically frosty. She continues, "Danny, this is Tony, a friend of mine from L.A."

Danny extends a hand and Tony shakes it firmly. The taller man isn't looking any less grim, so Danny tries a wider smile and says, "Any friend of Loomis' is a friend of mine." No response. If anything, Tony looks a little sick.

Reaching some mutual unspoken agreement, the three of them sit down. "So," Danny starts, his strained smile becoming genuine as he turns to Loomis, "this windfall of yours! Didn't take you long to get out of the bureau once some money came your way."

"I felt overworked. Nice to have some time to myself."

"I can imagine."

Loomis' friend—Tony—interrupts suddenly. "How are you?" he says. Better late than never, Danny thinks.

"I'm well. Busy, of course, but that's something you get used to."

"And your health?" Loomis adds, as though Tony's question has reminded her to ask.

He decides that they probably don't want to hear about the massive bruise on his leg from moving his refrigerator—it looks way too much like a sex injury to be showing off to the general public—and says simply, "fine, as always. You?"

Loomis nods absently. "Oh, I'm all right."

"Good to hear it."

They sit in awkward silence for a while until the drinks come. This, Danny thinks, is going to be a very long lunch.

o0o

It's another hour of polite small talk and sandwiches before Danny is able to excuse himself—it's still two hours until his appointment, but they're done eating and he has no reason to stay. His stomach is just a little tight with disappointment; he had felt so close to Loomis, and now she seemed to have forgotten him completely, even if she did ask to meet up with him. He'd never bought into the idea of money changing people, but maybe he was wrong about that.

"It was wonderful to see you again, Loomis," he says, standing, after saying a few niceties about running errands.

"One thing," Tony says casually, reaching into a pocket. "Danny, you wouldn't be getting a treatment today, would you?"

Danny stares. "I don't see how that's any of your business."

"No, no, I'm sorry, I'm sure that sounded awfully personal. It's just, a friend of mine works there. A girl named Bennett Halverson."

"I've never met her."

"Ah. Well, if you see her, could you give her this from me?" He hands him a tiny box he had fished out of his pocket.

"It's not a ring, is it? This isn't one of those weird remote proposal things?"

Tony flinches. "Oh, god, not at all. It's an SD card, has some information she wanted on it." Loomis looks at him sharply. "It's ok," he says to her quietly. "I can say that much."

It's fishy, but really Danny just wants out of the awkwardness so he agrees to deliver the package and leaves.

It has been too long since his last treatment, at that. He had been planning to go in in the evening, but perhaps it would be more prudent to go now. The driver must be one of those ones who seems to have ESP, because she appears at his shoulder right as he thinks that. "Would you like a treatment, Danny?" she asks.

"Yes, I was just thinking of going in early." This is familiar ground, and he gladly clambers into the back of the car.

"Did lunch go well?"

"Not particularly. I suppose we've grown apart since Quantico. Maybe we've both changed."

"That's a shame." Thankfully, she's silent for the rest of the drive, leaving Danny alone with his nostalgia.

The driver gets out of the car with him and escorts him to the door. Danny walks in, subtly checking his watch. He hopes this won't take long. "You can take it from here?" she says, and he raises his head to answer in the affirmative, but the question was aimed at the young woman working the chair. She just nods, focused on her work.

He takes a closer look at the woman. She's got long brown hair, an arm in a sling (broken? Dead?), and a pair of glasses on a chain. She exudes prim and proper and, above all, geek. He's a man of more exuberant tastes. Bouncy hair, colorful clothes, someone he wouldn't find at the office; this waif of a technician is definitely not his type. Except.

There's a look about her. A sharpness to her eyes, a sense of tension in her limbs that he would love to see released. Something about her knocks him off balance, like a changed contact lens prescription does.

"I said, will you take a seat?"

"Oh, yes, thank you." He begins to sit, but thinks better of it and sticks out a hand. "Danny Knight," he says. She stares at the offered hand. After a moment, she gently reaches out to shake it.

"I'm Bennett Halverson."

Danny's face falls. So, this is Tony's mystery woman. He didn't figure the laconic militant for a geek, but then, maybe he noticed the same thing—whatever it is—that Danny did. "Ah," he says, and pulls the small off-white envelope from his pocket. "This is for you, then."

She unwraps the SD card and holds it up to the light. "Who is it from?"

"Your friend Tony. He had lunch with me and an old acquaintance earlier today."

Halverson's brown eyes grow wider. "Would you like a treatment, Mr. Knight?"

With a snap back to the real world, Danny remembers why he's here. "Yes. Thanks."

He sits back in the chair and hopes that this won't take long.

o0o

"Thank you for your assistance, Ms. Loomis."

"You're welcome. I did wonder what happened to Paul here—got kicked out of the bureau, disappeared completely, and a few years later all his wild theories come true. Thought for sure you were dead," Loomis aims the last sentence accusatorily at Paul, who's sitting next to Dewitt across from his old friend.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to get anyone in trouble."

Dewitt smiles. "It's a little too late for that, now, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't count us out yet. Seems you have some friends in high places, Rossum's own technician?" Loomis quirks an eyebrow.

"Bad choice of words," Paul says as Dewitt's face darkens.

"We're hardly friends," she says shortly.

Loomis shifts in her seat. "He looked fine to me. You've seen the video." Dewitt had, three times so far. "I'm glad I could help."

"Yes, yes. I've made sure that some of that windfall has remained in your account—it probably won't be enough to buy another engagement," she jokes, "but we did have some money in private accounts to use after we split from Rossum."

Paul leans forward. "Loomis, we could use you here. Are you sure you don't want to stay?"

"The bureau needs real people right now, Paul. But call me up if you need me again."

They don't get a chance. Loomis is killed by a butcher five months later while evacuating refugees from a ruined suburb and wondering since when her job description included such things.


	10. For Bennett Halverson

**Author's Notes: Hey... how's it going... sorry about the long wait... *shifty eyes* I'm dedicating this chapter to Enamoratrix on Tumblr, for putting up with my faulty muse and me and for being awesome. Much love! This one jumps back in time to before the last chapter, but nonetheless I'm putting it after so that you have some suspense about what was actually on that SD card. Hope you enjoy the chapter, and I hope I can get some more to you soon!**

**Also, I wanted to ask if any of my readers have any artistic skill and would like to draw or manip a cover image for this fic. PM me if you're interested!**

Adelle doesn't hesitate walking into the room. She's very careful not to; even with the security cameras off she's always watching herself for signs of weakness. She strides into the erstwhile doll's sleeping chamber without a falter.

She stops, raises her head, and looks at the wall once again, knowing what she will see, knowing nearly every word by heart, but her arm—holding a clipboard and pen—still goes slack in, well, maybe it's awe.

The expensive red wood panels, dulled from going unpolished for so long, are covered in writing. It's in three different colors of Sharpie, red, black, and blue, so that the spots where the letters are small and the writing dense look like bruises. Some words, some statements, are blown up large, slanting up across the wall in block letters that are far more legible than the scrawl that makes up most of the writing. She can see the places where the words become a monoculture of names, where Topher's mind slipped away from him and he had forgotten what he meant to write in favor of

_Echo Echo Echo Echo Adelle Adelle Caroline Adelle Boyd Langton Langton Boyd Langdon Bond Boyd man-friend Boyd where are you where are they November November November Bennett_

What he wrote would only cover a few pages, but it's repeated over and over, from a little off the floor to nearly as high as he could reach. Much of the prose is Topher's overcomplicated technical speech (she'd never been sure if he wrote like that to sound as smart as he was or because his brain just worked that way), but she has faith that Halverson can decode it.

Anyway, she only needs to write it down once. She'll piece together the bits she can't read from the several repetitions, and of course she can leave out the names, the ranting.

_Dr. Whiskey Saunders no no Claire Saunders she's human Claire Whiskey Claire I was helping you wasn't I please Whiskey no she's going to bite me and I'm afraid Claire_

There's no introduction. That's a good thing, she thinks, and she almost smiles remembering when the file marked C. Brink first passed into her hands, a disc inside holding the four published academic papers he had written so far (he was eighteen at the time. Rossum wouldn't contact him in person for three more years). The papers were genius, but the introductions, she remembered clearly, were awful.

But this begins in the middle—she has wondered if there's more written somewhere, but suspects it is in Topher's mind.

_Contrary to previous hypotheses, neuroplasticity is not proof of complete separation of personality and body._

That's how it begins: everything they thought they knew was wrong. The nihilistic world of the scientist that Topher had built had come crashing down around his ears, and the bugs that he had pinned securely to index cards, assured that they felt no pain, had begun screaming. Once he had spent two days convinced that each former doll was in a constant state of torture-no one quite forgot the image of Topher on all fours, using his fingernails to shred the mattress Sierra had been carrying to the infirmary and sobbing that he was going to kill you, Nolan, and then she'll be safe.

Adelle blinks twice, inhales sharply, and begins to transcribe.

Topher had assigned each doll under their care a number and attempted to analyze them, describing the quest for and discovery of the soul in technical terms and long words.

_The original personality, while subservient to and following the actions of the imprint, persists as the material that the imprint is made up of; thus, strong innate traits such as love or instability continue. Subject 1, reported to have possessed aspects of a hero complex in her original personality, based her developing persona on the desire to rescue others. Subject 2 reverted to the psychopathic behavior of his original mind on multiple occasions. Similarly, after undergoing a severe shock, subject 5 began to show signs of instability separate from those neuroses programmed into the imprint, which did not disappear upon wipe. Subject 4 showed none of these signals, retroactively disproving the reports of an unstable mental state before admission to the dollhouse Priya was real Priya Nolan Sierra Topher Priya Nolan Priya Topher Sierra Sierra Sierra always Sierra_

She's able to put it all together, eventually. A few pages of essay that say that he was wrong, that the dolls are human, that the mind wipe only takes away the nonessentials and far, deep down

_We are who we are, regardless of the content of our brains._

There are a few references to gut neurons and research into a second brain that took place several years after the tech was invented. Adelle wonders what happened to the scientists who proposed the concept, not knowing that it was radical and would bring the most powerful and corrupt corporation in the world to their doorstep.

Did they escape with their identities intact?

She has to go to Topher's office to type up the words-all the tech with a potential for wireless connection had been excised from the rest of the house when they cut themselves off from the world. Gina is sorting through wedges for those that could be useful to the resistance effort. She takes one look at Adelle's face, though, and hurries out with a muttered apology.

Adelle wonders what she saw there; in the window, her reflection stares back at her with blank eyes.

She puts Topher's essay on an SD card, then adds another document that she has named "For Bennett Halverson." The card in her hand feels alive, like it is full of energy that seeps into her hand and makes it ache like the pit of her stomach does. Tech always seemed alive to Topher-his tech was alive and his humans were brain-dead.

She places the card in a thin box and slips it into her pocket to give to Tony.

o0o

_Ms. Halverson,_

How do I even start this, she thinks. Be analytical. Pretend we're talking about an active. She supposes they are, now.

_Every Dollhouse employee looks at the concept of the mind wipe differently. I am ashamed to acknowledge that this is due to an awful lack of knowledge regarding what it actually entails. Not enough research was done, and people have died because of it, many of them in my house, the site of both the Alpha incident and the discovery of Rossum's corruption by several of my employees, actives and staff both. However, events at my House have also given us—and most importantly, Christopher Brink—the opportunity to study what a mind wipe actually does and does not do. The knowledge, among other revelations and betrayals, drove him to the state you have seen yourself._

I'd hope that it will do the same to you, but somehow you're still the last chance he has.

_At the height of his first encounter with this instability, about a year ago, he didn't speak to anyone for two weeks. He didn't do anything. At the end of that time he wrote the following brief_

What do I even call it?

_proof on the wall, several times over. I have had to piece it together, but I think it should be clear._

_I can only hope that you will take his conclusions to heart. Topher's wellbeing means a great deal to_

Me.

_the resistance against Rossum, and understanding what effect or lack of one the mind wipe could be having on him is crucial._

_Adelle Dewitt_


End file.
